I am Siobhan Esposito, the widow of Captain Phillip Esposito, who was brutally murdered in Iraq along with First Lieutenant Louis Allen by Alberto Martinez, a soldier under my husband's command.
This is my personal testament to the injustice to which I have been forced to stand witness.

Thursday, April 21, 2016

I have always maintained that while the Army jurors who sat in judgement of Staff Sergeant Alberto Martinez allowed Martinez to escape punishment for the murder of my late husband, nothing could ever allow Martinez to escape his own character. In my view, Martinez is simply doomed to be the man that he has chosen to be.

For instance, today, I learned via an anonymous comment on my blog that Martinez was convicted in 2015 of a Florida felony contraband offense. I can only surmise that this was likely the product of the information I received here indicating that Marinez had been dismissed from his position at Florida's Taylor Correctional Institution for allegedly smuggling contraband into the prison.

Upon visiting the Florida Department of Corrections website, I found the information copied below.

Note: The offense descriptions are truncated and do not necessarily reflect the crime for which the offender is on supervision. Please refer to the court documents or the Florida Statutes for further information or definition.

Current Community Supervision History:

Offense Date

Offense

Sentence Date

County

Case No.

Community Supervision Length

06/01/2014

CONSTRUC.POSSESS CONTRAB.

02/09/2015

TAYLOR

1400250

3Y 0M 0D

06/01/2014

CONSTRUC.POSSESS CONTRAB.

02/09/2015

TAYLOR

1400250

0Y 6M 0D

It is jarring for me to see this. Martinez is a man I would just as soon never contemplate again. Yet here he is, and yet again I must look at this man who I believe murdered my husband and got away with it.

But I will say this: I am not in the least surprised that Martinez has again found himself in trouble with the law. We shall see soon enough what the future holds for the likes of him.

Monday, April 11, 2016

In my study of Army Captain Phillip Esposito’s murder and the subsequent acquittal of Staff Sergeant Alberto Martinez, the government’s only suspect in the slaying, I’ve heard it frequently argued that the court-martial panel that sat in judgement of Martinez did not properly understand its instructions, and thus acquitted Martinez in error.

Without hearing directly from the panel members who voted to acquit Martinez, it is difficult to confirm these claims. To date, none of members who voted “not guilty” have come forward to explain their reasoning. As difficult as it may seem for them, I hope that they will soon come forward and explain their votes.

But in the meantime, if it’s possible that some members of the Martinez panel misconstrued the instructions they received from the court, I see two questions:

Were the court’s instructions to the panel unclear, even if the instructions otherwise met the requirements of the law; and,

If the court’s instructions were unclear, how may we improve upon them to prevent future errors in justice?

In a May 28th talk before the Atlanta Objectivist Society, I’ll discuss my findings. I invite those interested in the Martinez case, and any writer who seeks to improve the clarity of their writing, to hear my argument.